


Altered

by Meatball42



Category: Torchwood
Genre: 5+1, Abuse, Alternate Universe, Bechdel Test Pass, Canon-typical depressing, Dark, Gen, Kid Fic, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Five times one of them forgot aliens were a secret, and one time someone never knew.





	Altered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NancyBrown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/gifts).

For all that certain relevant institutions and individuals worry about the possibility of universe-altering paradoxes or shifts in significant temporal vectors, few spend any time discerning whether the timelines they perceive are, in fact, the correct, original, unaltered timelines.

There is a good reason for this, and it is that there is no way of telling whether the direction our universe takes is the original path of the timestream or an offshoot. And moreover, even if one could prove that the universe we perceive had been altered, it would be quite difficult to shift it back to the correct path without changing some other significant point. So while the concept is entertaining and interesting to ponder philosophically, it is of no practical use to anyone in the space-time business.

This is a pity, because our universe has, in fact, been altered.

A seventeen-year-old boy in Cardiff scrolls hopelessly through online course listings at the behest of his sister. She is determined that he will go to University, but none of the courses look promising to young Ianto Jones. He's thinking about Astronomy, vaguely, but it's not quite right. Nothing else piques his interest in the slightest.

(Every time he clicks tiredly down a list, his eyes catch at a place just past English but before French. He does not notice, nor does he figure out that the missing listing is Extraterrestrial Studies.)

Who needs Uni, anyway?

* * *

In her senior year of University, studying advanced computer science and theoretical physics, Toshiko Sato takes a required art elective. One of her fellow students is a woman of medium height, sharp eyes, and hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow. Her paintings are of abstract landscapes, where violet grass, imposing blue mountains and impossible yellow storms rage with a ferocity that couldn’t exist in reality. Her arms are thin but shaped with muscle, and it takes weeks before Tosh manages to shyly approach and ask after her paintings.

“What planet are you from?” she queries the woman distractedly. She hardly considers her words, as her mind is aglow with—(the composition of an atmosphere required to sustain storms like that, trying to place the sun that would support such a biome into her mental map of the local solar systems)—as her mind is aglow with the beauty of the paintings, something so deep and incredible and far-away hidden within their long brush strokes.

The painter glares at her. “What, are you some sort of art critic? Don't ever speak to me again!”

Toshiko hurries away, blushing bright red under the stares of her fellow students, and wonders what is wrong with her.

* * *

Jack Harkness is very busy the day he sends in the requisition for the Torchwood Range Rover.

“We’re very lucky,” his second-in-command, Suzie Costello, tells him in a superior tone, “that I called the shop to make sure you’d called in the order, or else we’d've ended up with 'Torchwood' plastered over the sides of the autos. And haven’t you lectured me a few dozen times about how Torchwood ‘must remain in the shadows?’”

(For a brief moment, Jack is confused that Torchwood has to remain secret. They police alien traffic on Earth, why wouldn't they be a public presence?)

“You’re completely right, Suzie, and you passed the test,” Jack says jovially. He skirts her on the platform and grins at her outraged squawk as he strides away.

Still, he's sure he'll never hear the end of that mistake.

* * *

Some idiot comes into A&E late on a Friday night with mysterious scratches down his side that have gotten infected and are turning purple. Doctor Owen Harper has been on shift for ten hours already, has only had two cups of coffee, and is thoroughly. Done. 

“What have you slept with recently?” he asks, off-hand, mostly thinking about the pot of life-saving elixir that’s brewing in the break room and whether tonight will end up being the night he gives in and asks that arsehole resident in Intensive Care for a bump to get through.

“Excuse me?” the patient says indignantly. He rears back and Owen loses contact with the wounds, which only means this interaction will take longer, for Christ’s sake. “Are you accusing me of bestiality?”

(_'Great, a xenophobe,’ _ Owen thinks in another world. _ ‘Christ I hate the people who’ll fuck an off-worlder and then act like humanity is God’s stinking gift to the universe.’ _)

Owen takes a deep breath. He’s already got a complaint on his record this year, he doesn’t need another. “I misspoke. I meant, what kind of woman left those?”

The patient lets out a big breath, mollified, and then laughs.

* * *

  
  
  
“I want to go to… Paris,” says Carolyn Cooper.

Gwen Cooper, no relation, a whole six months younger and significantly less popular than the beautiful Carolyn, squirms in her sleeping bag. It’s Carolyn’s birthday sleepover, and Gwen was lucky to get an invitation, and she wants to have something cool to say when it’s her turn.

“I’ve been to France,” says Leah Ipswich. “I want to go to Turkey!”

“What’s in Turkey?” asks Britney Carmichael.

“Lots of beautiful buildings,” says Leah. “My mum’s family is from there.”

It’s Gwen’s turn. “I want to go to Andromeda and see the lunar festivals,” she says, hiding her nervousness behind a gap-tooth smile.

The other girls laugh. “Andromeda?” Carolyn repeats. “Where’s _ that? _”

“I think it’s a Pacific Island,” says Candice Whaite, who’s one of the smartest girls in their year.

“Yeah,” Gwen says weakly. Suddenly she can’t remember a thing about Andromeda. The conversation moves on, and she’s left with a feeling of emptiness.

* * *

It’s dark outside, and wet. But young Suzie Costello is cold and hungry and desperate, and she walks most of the way across the city before a meddling policeman stops her.

“Hello there, young miss,” he says, smiling wide to show crooked teeth. “Can I ask where you’re going at such an hour?”

“Sisters of Jupiter,” says Suzie. It hurts her neck to look him in the eye, but she does it anyway because You Look At Someone When They’re Talking To You.

“Sisters… I don’t think I’ve heard of them,” the policeman says. “Is that a Catholic thing?”

“They’re aliens,” Suzie tells him. She doesn’t know how a policeman hasn’t heard of the Sisters. They run the best abuse shelter in the city. She’s done her research and planned carefully before leaving home.

It’s all for nothing, though. The policeman insists that she has to come with him, and Suzie knows better than to fight with a grown man. He drives her back home, where her father is waiting up, and they have a private conversation.

“It’s not the first time, officer. Don’t worry, I’m trying to set her right,” Suzie’s father says with a big smile.

Suzie knows she’s not going to get another chance to escape for a good long while.


End file.
